The Young And The Restless Weekly Blog

As discussed last week, "Y&R" has some issues. Soaps.com readers had their say in last week's Restless Rant poll, in which only 7% of nearly 2000 voters indicated they felt positively about the show. Thoughts on this week:

A rose by any other name. So now the quest for 'Rose' is a quest for 'Anne'. Gah. Maybe if they had firmly established Leslie’s character before delving into this long, dragged on mystery about her family, viewers would care. It’s fast-forward material. As for Neil and the blog scandal, not only does the story need a jumpstart, but it’s strange that he and Jack haven’t had so much as a conversation about the effect on Jabot, given that Neil is running the fashion division. In fact, no one else in town has talked about it, or brought it up to Neil or any of his family members. Wouldn’t this be huge? It’s like this storyline is playing out in a bubble.

Just snapping. There was possibly some foreshadowing in the conversation between Paul and Michael about the woman who just snapped, raged out, and murdered her cheating husband. With the sudden existence of a Carmine/Lauren sex tape, things could surely get ugly. As for Carmine and the Lauren look-alike - what was up with that? Anyway, Michael and Lauren have been going two steps forward, one step back, which seems about right, and Paul gave himself a bit of a break this week by putting some closure on the Ricky situation. Nice.

Rock him hard. In another bit of foreshadowing, Billy talked about Jack having been able to beat his addiction demons because nothing has rocked him hard enough to send him back to them. Well, he’s about to be rocked right out of the mansion with the news that Summer’s his daughter, Phyllis kept it from him, and Phyllis kissed Kyle. That’s if anyone ever gets around to telling him of course. Anyway, the Abbott brothers did not disappoint this week – Jack dealing with drunk, broken Billy was fab.

No-good loser. Nikki and Billy’s discussion about addiction was also very good; very realistic. Then Victor blew in and kicked Billy out, calling him a worthless addict loser. It's absolutely true-to-form for him to say those insults to Billy, but to repeatedly state right in front of Nikki that addicts are worthless losers and not 'get' why it upset her seemed a tad too clueless for such a shrewd man.

Victor’s spy. It looks like newbie #9, er, Melanie, has managed to get herself caught in the middle of Victor and Adam's battle of wits. It probably would have been more interesting to watch someone we know, who is capable of holding their own with the Newman men, find themselves in this precarious position. Melanie is clearly in over her head – so awkward to watch.

Opportunist. It was satisfying to see Jill put that snippy Hilary newbie on notice. That girl has an agenda, and Jill was onto her from the word 'go'. Love it.

Opportunity. Mason, the Genoa City floater, got canned by Devon (who’s apparently taking a hatchet to that much-heralded campaign) and scored an instant bartending job because Noah decided to leave his post to flirt the truth out of Courtney and then run out to the tackhouse to tell Nick that Summer’s in Chicago. Noah couldn’t have phoned? Nick didn’t even ask who was running his bar! So funny.

Falling off the camel. So the deal with Stitch is that he's pushing Dylan to tell Chelsea 'everything', aka, 'what happened with Sullivan'... Why is this even an issue? Dylan told Sharon about it, like, the day they first held a conversation, so why would he be holding out on Chelsea? Whatever. Anyway, Stitch was charismatic, but bringing him to town to reiterate what a stellar dude Dylan is? Spare us. Also in this storyline, there was another run-in with Chelsea, Dylan, and glum bum, Adam. Zzz.

Paternity party. Nick telling Avery about Summer being Jack's daughter before Jack and Summer knew was straight up weak. Ugh. Avery jumping to the conclusion that it was Phyllis who had messed with the lab results made for a very entertaining exchange (nothing better than Phyllis losing her s***), but why did Nick stand there like his tongue had been ripped out and let Avery go on and on? Jeeze, Nick! Anyway, the whole 'Phyllis kissing NuKyle the dud, who dumped Summer, who ran away', business has been like a circus sideshow - not in a fun way - however, the bits with Abby and Traci being involved were good for a grin.

Happily ever after? Sharon's had a bit of a wild look in her eye again lately, and a keen interest in her past with Nick. Given her non-reaction over the paternity results, her cryptic reference to 'what I did' at Cassie's grave, and the fact that she was lurking around when Nick took the DNA samples to the lab, the speculation that she mucked with that paternity test is definitely a possibility.

Am I a pigeon? Yep, Alex and Abby did the right thing by going their separate ways. They were way too different and their bickering was hitting migraine levels. I'd still like to see him heat up the sheets with Chloe, which would surely make life at the police station interesting now that Kevin's working there.

Villy, Chilly, and Clovin. I'm with the lady cop, Kevin needs to cease and desist with the 'poor me' routine. Not that one could help feeling bad for him when he cried at the hospital, but it wasn't the time to make Chloe focus on him. So, we know he loves Delia and they should be allowed to continue their relationship, but yeah, let's move on. Also at the hospital, Billy and Chloe were doing a lot of embracing and being supportive of one another, not to mention the family scenes with Delia - all leading to reunion speculation. In the questionable writing department: Chloe's remark about Victoria kicking an addict when he was down, was bizarre since Chloe just walked out on Kevin for being 'addicted' to stealing, and she also got tough with Billy in similar circumstances in the past. Victor was behind-the-scenes of Billy's downfall that time. Do you think Victor has engineered Billy's return to gambling this time around? Vote:

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